In Pace Christi

Fr. Vittorio Marzocca was born in Barletta on 16 March, 1924. As a young boy, he met the Combonians in Barletta and Troia. He joined the Comboni seminary at Brescia and did the novitiate in Florence, while war was raging (1941-1943), and took first vows on 7 October, 1943, the Feast of the Holy Rosary, which, at that time, was the traditional day on which Combonians made their consecration to God. Since the war prevented him from going to Verona, he was sent to Rebbio di Como for two years, as a student for the priesthood and prefect of the young seminarians of the junior seminary.

He studied at the Verona scholasticate from 1945 to 1947 and that of Venegono from 1947 to 1948, completing his studies there. He was ordained to the priesthood on 11 June, 1949, by Cardinal Ildefonso Schuster, in Milan Cathedral.

He was then sent to Sunningdale, England, where he learned English and then left for the diocese of Gulu, in Uganda. After a short period at Gulu Cathedral, he was appointed to the parish of Kitgum, where he worked from November 1950 to July 1953.

After a very brief period in ministry in Verona, he returned to Uganda, this time to West Nile as chaplain to the secondary school of Nyapea. He served from 1955 to 1959 at Lodonga, as spiritual director of the new Congregation of Marian Brothers, an Institute of Brothers whose main apostolate was that of teaching in schools.

In August, 1959, he was appointed to the Gozzano novitiate as assistant novice master and, from 1960 to 1961, at that of Florence. He was spiritual director of the students at the Mother House in Verona from 1961 to 1962.

At last, in July 1962, he succeeded in returning to Uganda as chaplain to the large hospital of Lacor, Gulu; then, in 1965, he moved a few hundred metres away, to Gulu Cathedral for pastoral ministry.

In 1971 he was sent to Kalongo, where there was a large hospital, to minister to the sick and the dying and for pastoral work in the mission chapels. In 1978, he was appointed parish priest of Namokora, also in the diocese of Gulu, and, in 1980, moved to the parish of Awach. In 1986, he was appointed to the parish of Gulu Town (in the centre of the city), for pastoral ministry and also as local bursar.

In 1999, he prepared for his Golden Jubilee of priesthood by doing the Renewal Course in Rome. In July of the following year, he returned to Uganda, working at Kalongo, in ministry and at the hospital and then at Layibi, at the Brothers’ postulancy. Towards the end of 2004, for reasons of age and health, he returned to Italy, at Troia, where he helped in parish ministry and mission promotion.

In 2011, after suffering a stroke that left him unable to speak, he went to Milan for treatment. This was a painful period for Fr. Vittorio as he tried, with the help of a speech therapist, to regain his speech. Unfortunately, he had a relapse that caused even more damage and he was no longer able to put into words what he clearly had in his mind.

However, together with this image of suffering and bitterness, Fr. Lino Spezia, while preaching at the funeral, spoke of how Fr. Vittorio spent more than 50 years in Uganda, proclaiming the Gospel to countless people. A man of combative and determined spirit, he was a sign of hope for all the patients of Lacor and was probably the only priest to stop at every bed to visit the Ebola patients during the first serious outbreak of the disease. Bro. Elio Croce remembers well his visits to the sick, anointing them and accompanying the dead to the cemetery to pray once again for each of them. He was not afraid of the Ebola and he saw that particular emergency situation as an opportunity to express the tenderness of God towards his children.
Da Mccj Bulletin n. 266 suppl. In Memoriam, gennaio 2016, pp. 1-4.